Experimental Shoot 8 Evaluation

For my eighth experimental shoot I planned and shot a conceptual shoot. This experimental shoot will go along side all of my other seven experimental shoots to make a total of eight experimental shoots. The reason that I am doing this for my final major project is because it will help me to develop my idea and my work further in order to improve it. I am also completing these shoots to see if there is anything that I need to change something’s or if there is anything that I need to do differently. Doing these experimental shoots will not only help me to develop the concept of my idea but they will also help me to technically develop my idea however this shoot in this shoot I am aiming to try and conceptually develop my idea which I think is really important. There are some conceptual aspects of my project that I need to focus on along with technical elements. When it comes down to my experimental shoots I think that technical shoots are very easy to do as a lot of the technical skills that I have used in my previous shoots, I have already used before in photography, however when it comes to conceptual shoots I think you can develop a lot more because you are focusing on new and different ideas to develop your idea. I hope that all of my shoots will help me in one way or another and from my plans, I think I have managed to effectively push my self and plan good and different ideas that will effectively help me to get good results in my final shoot. When planning these experimental shoots I also had to take into consideration my other shoots, which were my technical shoots and the ideas that I had researched and planned for these shoots. In these shoot plans I tried to incorporate research and also other stuff like my general knowledge and information from websites and also artist profiles, along with this I also tried as much as I could to make all of my ideas different and also add some variety into my work, the reason that I wanted to do this was so that all of my work didn’t look the same and that I could use my experiments to there full advantage by using different ideas and techniques to help with my work. I think that my research helped me to do this whether I was researching a technique, an news story or an artist as it really gave the shoot plan some variety and made each of them different because of the variety in research. I think that in my conceptual shoots it is definitely important to focus on the story as this is what the shoot is all about, but I also have to take into consideration the technical aspects that go along side this as because a lot of my shoots that I have planned are taking place in the studio there are a lot of different technical aspects that I have to take into consideration.

For this experimental shoot I have decided to focus on another news story. I think that when it comes to joiners initially I found it very hard to plan a variety of different ideas for my different conceptual shoots. However when I decided on my subject for my joiners I found it a lot easier to decide on my different concepts and ideas for my conceptual shoots. For my different conceptual shoots I decided on focusing on different news subjects and not specific stories, the reason that I didn’t want to us specific news stories is because I felt that it would take away the variety from my choice when it came to choosing a story for my final shoot. The different subject that I chose for my shoots I tried to briefly touch on a story related to them so I could clearly show what subject I chose to use but some times in my different shoots I touched on a wider variety of stories and tried to bring them all together in one image. For this shoot the subject that I chose to use was Terrorism. The reason that I chose this news subject is because I think that there are so many stories related to it and currently in the news there are lots of stories related to this and it is very highly covered in the news. I also think that there are so many different ways that you can approach this subject in terms of what is involved in them. For this shoot I wanted to focus on the variety of different headlines that have been produced for this subject. I think there are a variety of different news headlines that cover this news subject and it is good to show all of these in one joiner because it shows the variety of the subject and how minor it can be but also how severe these stories can become. The way that I wanted to set this joiner up was in a collage style form but I still wanted to make it clear about the different news stories involved and I still wanted to make them all visible to the audience, I think that if I didn’t do this then my joiner wouldn’t make a lot of sense and the different news stories that I was using wouldn’t the clear enough to the audience which is something that I didn’t want to do or have in my work. Before I had done this shoot I had already done a technical shoot where I experimented with the different ways that I can set up joiners without Photoshop and I found this really helpful as I already knew about the different ways that I could set up my work and I didn’t spend to much time trying to set my work up in different ways, when planning this shoot I also had a rough idea of how I wanted to set out my work as well so I also took this into consideration when I was setting up my work and organizing my different bits of material that I was using. I feel that in this shoot using headlines rather than using a specific story really helped me to show variety in my work and I think that this is an ideal thing to do as in my other shoots I had picked out specific stories rather than showing an overview of the whole subject. I think this shoot has showed me that I don’t need to use a specific story in my work; I can use an overview of something and still represent that subject in a good way that is clear to the audience. Much like my other shoots I have tried hard to include enough shots in this shoot that will fill a contact sheet. Contact Sheet is attached.

Like my American election shoot I took pictures throughout the shoot to show my set up of my images. I did this to show the audience how I set up my work and also in case I go back to this work in the future and want to know how to set up a certain shot. I also did this so that I could get a variety of different shots that would also show the different news headlines on there own and along with others, I found this very helpful and I think that it really contributed to my work and I found it effective.

This shoot that I did took place in the classroom and not in the studio. The reason that I chose to do it in the classroom, as I just wanted a white background for my images and the tables in the classroom that I used allowed me to have this. I also chose not to do this in the studio, as I didn’t need to use any lighting in my images, as I didn’t think that I needed to use any. I also thought that I didn’t need to use any backdrops because I had the white tables in the classroom, I think that if I used the white backdrop in the studio it wouldn’t have made much of a difference because I used the white tables. For this shoot I chose not to use a tripod because I wasn’t in the studio anyway so I didn’t think that I would need it. I also felt that if I didn’t use a tripod then I would have been able to get a wider variety of angles in my images, which I think I managed to achieve in my images. I think that I achieved this because I managed to get the flat lay style images that I wanted when I was planning my images and I am very happy that I managed to get these shots without the use of a tripod.

I feel that my shoot went very well, I think that the images that I got from this shoot were very good and will really help me for this project and I can use them effectively towards my final piece, by using them as inspiration and as influence for the way I lay out, set up and shoot my final images. However with a lot of my shoots I have found some things that I can improve on and I think that it is good to find things like this as it shows you have analyzed your work well and that you have identified flaws in your work and these flaws can help you to improve not only in this shoot but also in my other shoots that I do for this project. Something that I would improve in this shoot if I had to complete it again would be by using different news headlines and shooting them in different ways to maybe try and explain something or set up a certain scenario. Other than this I think that my shoot went really well and I am very happy with the final images that I got.

For this piece of work in particular I focused more on my research into my subject rather than inspiration from an artist. The reason that I chose to do this was because I felt that it would help me to identify something that I could shoot in my images. I looked further into the subject that I had chosen and I explained the different ways that that it is covered in the news and what the subject involves. I think that this research was very helpful for me and I think that t really helped me towards my shoot and also in my general knowledge of this subject. This research that I have completed will also help me in my other shoots that I do. For example if I was to do a shoot as part of another project which involves this subject then I will already have some form of research on it. Also if I choose to use this one for my final shoot then I will have some research for it.

When I was doing my shoot I had a rough idea in my mind of how I wanted to set up my work but I had nothing set in stone, however there were only a certain amount of things that I could do with the materials that I had. I tried to experiment with a few different ways of setting up, as I hadn’t made a final decision. This was the same in a few of my other shoots as well and the reason that I have done this is because it gives me the ability to change my mind when I want to and change the things that I am going to do prior to the shoot. Examples of this can be found on my contact sheet.

I felt that this shoot was quite challenging for me, the reason I thought this is because I had only shot with joiners a few times previous to this so I was still working on my skills with joiners and finding out the different ways to set them up and how I could actually show my stories through them. Also I feel that working with different news stories and subjects at different times means that you are challenging yourself each time because you are trying out different stories and you have to set them up in different ways so that they make sense. I found it quite difficult at first to construct my work and whilst doing it I was breaking it down in my mind and analyzing it also to see if it made sense to me as I knew that if it made some sense to me then it would make some sense to the audience I think this is a really important thing to consider when shooting especially I your experiments as your able to identify in your shoots whether you think the audience is able to understand your idea or not, you can then put it into practice in your final shoot and this means that you are able to get it right in both your experiments and also your final shoot.

Compared to my other conceptual shoots that I have done I feel that there are something things that made them similar and some things that showed the difference between them. A prime example of how I think that they are the same is because I am focusing on news stories and news stories are always making an appearance in my conceptual shoots. The reasons for this is because this is want I to focus on in my joiners for my final shoot and I have had to experiment with a variety of different ones. A prime example of how my work is difference is that in each of my news stories I have had something different each time to represent. For example in my previous shoots I have worked on news topics that are very political and involve a lot of debating. I think that this news story is very different and the way that I have shot this news topic also is very different to how I have set out my work before.